March Update

Mystery bulbs are flourishing!

The toughest gardening challenge I have faced so far this year has been finding the patience to accept that this is a new, large garden and will inevitably take time to get established.  Part of this is waiting for plants to flourish, and part is waiting for my own familiarity with the garden to become useful.

Perhaps the biggest surprise over winter and early Spring was how poorly the garden performed. When I moved  in, I was over the moon with such a vast expanse of rich soil, well laid out beds and all protected by high brick walls.  A far cry from the sand, rocky, exposed garden I had before.  And yet my old garden defied the odds, becoming one of the most spectacular in the neighbourhood, with surprisingly little interference from me beyond planting and weeding.

Perhaps the problem is that I don't yet know what the problems are.

Pansies, cyclamen, primroses... all vanished. :(

There are several mysteries still shrouding the lack of growth and blooms this Spring, such as..

What is digging up and eating my bulbs?
What happened to my cyclamen??
Why didn't my crocus bulbs come up?
What ate my primroses and pansies?
Why did my azalea bloom in January??
Despite being rich soil, is it not draining when the water table is high?
What in the world are all those bulbs, sprouting leaves even when discarded on the suface?
Is the soil in the shaded bed too cold over winter to support even winter-hardy perennials?

I guess time will tell, but my oh my, finding patience to wait and see instead of whipping out the credit card on a mass plant buying spree is tough!

It wasn't all bad though; the irises that burst through were pure jewels.

Indoor Garden

Who says you need a greenhouse or expensive propagation kits to grow plants from seeds?  Since most of my plants will be used for guerilla gardening projects, or donated to raise money for local charities, (more on this later) I have a strong motivation to save money.

My home office has been turned into quite an indoor garden, with literally thousands of seeds tucked in cosy compost beds enjoying light from the window and a steady warmth from a radiator turned down low.

The planting containers are all recycled, making good use of take out trays, food containers and even egg cartons (ideal for larger seeds that won't need pricked out later.)  Number 1 is VERY pleased to finally see me put these saved containers to good use instead of piling up in my gardening cupboard!

As for the seeds themselves, I have also been mean with my purse strings.  This is largely because of the disappointment I have felt this Spring at the sparse display in my borders despite having spent a fair whack of cash on bulbs from catalogues.

Scrambled Egg on my Face

Image from vanmeuwen.com

 Unusual varieties of Daffodils failed to come up at all (and I was SO looking forward to the pink Replete variety) while the lovely double bloomed ones (nicknamed Scrambled Egg daffodils by my Mum) did flash their lovely heads but had such weak stems that they sent their blooms careening to the ground as soon as they flourished.

 My snowdrop bulbs sprouted a few half hearted leaves (lesson learned I will buy them in the green next year)  and the hardy Muscari practically swamped the beds with clumps of leaves before sending out single blue flower stems that look quite silly amongst all the foliage.

Cheap Seeds
So when it came to planting seeds, I wanted to see the results from going to the other extreme.  Dad came to the rescue, donating a veritable booty of seed packets from his gardening stash, however most of these past their "best before" date around the same time as Bobby Ewing stepped out of the shower.

Never one to be put off however, I planted many of them, and after 7 days there are already many, many green shoots coming up to greet me each morning.

My second source of seeds was a three for £2 deal from a local discount store.  Cheap seeds=weak plants, right?  Yet many of these seeds are the varieties sold by a well known plant catalogue for four times the price.   They are going to be planted this week, and I will be sure to let you know the results, both for germination and flower production.